Using the latest 3-D computer technology, a team of digital artists have created what they claim is the real face of Jesus.

The contours of the face and body were taken from the ghostly face imprinted on the Shroud, the bloodied linen sheet said to have covered the body of Christ in his tomb.

Months of painstaking work went into the reconstruction, which is the first of its kind. The results were recorded by The History Channel for a two-part documentary, The Real Face Of Jesus, broadcast this week.

"If you want to recreate the face of Jesus and you want to get the actual face of Jesus, you only have one object and that's the shroud," said Ray Downing, lead artist on the project.

"I have a lot of information about that face and my estimation is we're pretty darn close to what this man looked like."

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The face they have created looks very different from the image on the Shroud, Mr Downing explained, because it has been transformed from 2-D to 3-D. "The shroud wasn't hanging on the wall - it was wrapping a corpse. The face is hidden in there. By imitating those distortions we could take the image and put it back into shape and figure out what the face looked like. It gave us a blueprint," he said.

Debate has raged for centuries about the authenticity of the Shroud. In 1988, carbon dating tests appeared to show that the material dated back to between 1260 and 1390, suggesting that it was a medieval forgery.

However, it was subsequently claimed that the results could have been distorted as the linen has been repaierd over the centuries due to water or fire damage.

Two million people are expected to view the Shroud when it goes on display next month at Turin Cathedral.